


maraschino cherries

by stelgibson



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Fluff, Romance, Vignette, aka you will never catch me writing anything but these little observations, anyways mulder and scully are in love and yeah !!! yeah, poetry-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelgibson/pseuds/stelgibson
Summary: "He brings a telescope with him so that she’s seen herself in the night sky, her freckles like the stars..."
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45





	maraschino cherries

**Author's Note:**

> a series of vignettes, from my heart to you. no beta.

“love, the breaking of your soul upon my lips” - e.e. cummings

i.

He buys her maraschino cherries so when he kisses her, it’s sickly sweet, cherry syrup and hidden kisses and frozen fingers at his waistband. 

He offers himself to her in the entrance of her motel room, so when she kisses him, it’s desperately warm, sloppy and needy and her fingers pull at his collar.

He brings a telescope with him so that she’s seen herself in the night sky, her freckles like the stars, and he prays that he’ll be able to count them every morning and every night and every hour in between.

He tugs at her scarf in the dark, boarded up grocery stores and cracked roads, falling leaves and chapped lips, flickering street lights and small gusts of wind, little puffs of air leaving their lips, red tipped noses centimeters apart, three mississippi, two mississippi, one mississippi away from kissing in the alley and against store fronts, outside their car and under the fluorescent motel sign. Uneven breathing and darkened eyes, the chills down her spine having nothing to do with the frigid air. Kissing with abandon on the street corner, the only two people in this world, on this planet, in the universe (fuck you little green men).

ii.

There are no tears allowed when Ahab raised you. Hard nosed and tough, life’s challenges are just lessons in disguise, sit up straight and eat three meals and say thank you to your mother on the way out, and also don’t sneak out any cigarettes unless your favorite ice cream flavor of the day is silent disappointment and measured glares. 

Unbridled emotion and salt water are reserved for only the hardest days, for the toughest days, for the news you never thought you would hear. For the times your heart is broken in ten thousand four hundred and thirty six ways. For the days when you know your prayers are most definitely not being heard, because this type of suffering is unimaginable. When your health is jeopardized at the hands of others, when you’re not allowed to be a mother, when you bury your partner in the rain. No crying, no crying and then it’s all at once, aching and aching, endless sorrow and too high cliffs. 

iii. 

“After all you’ve seen, after all the evidence, why can’t you believe?”

The second law of thermodynamics states that no energy enters or leaves the system in all energy exchanges. That any isolated system will always degenerate into a more disordered state. Entropy is important and everlasting. It’s not reversible. It defines the direction for spontaneous change in everyday phenomena. But she still tries to reverse this with only her sheer will, to stop the disorder in its tracks, to have one millisecond to breathe. It seems no matter how much energy she puts in, none of it comes back to her. Everything gets taken, taken, taken, until she is left with her dreams and her thoughts, a racing heart and less information than before. All she wants is to stop time and drag them away from the black hole that is the quest for the truth, to gain back the days and months and years it’s taken them to make any fraction of progress. 

“I’m afraid. I’m afraid to believe.”

iv.

She kisses his wrist, his pulse beating against her lips, eyes glassy at this proof of life, proof that he is alive. His joke is weak like his body and she still laughs, thankful over and over and over again that he is alive and in her arms. 

v.

His breathing is heavy, his head buried in her chest, and she idly plays with his hair. His features are at peace, mouth slack, his arms are wrapped around her torso. He is her blanket, her protector, her lover; he has her back in more ways than one. He shifts when her lips reach his forehead, a small smile hanging on the corners of his lips, and her heart is so full that it aches.

He mumbles a quiet ‘good morning’, his voice deep and scratchy from the sleep. She feels it straight in her core. He disappears under the covers, settles between her legs, and she starts the morning off with her eyes rolling back, fingers buried in his hair, and she’s flushed and sated.  _ Good  _ morning, indeed. She thanks him in the shower, soapy and giggly and pliable and warm. The steam envelopes them, as they stay pressed together under the spray of water. She remembers that life is, in fact, good.

vi.

Pale peach and white neon sign - Phil’s Diner - is the stop of the day. Fruit cup, oatmeal, hash browns, two coffees but only one with cream, eggs over easy, three pieces of bacon. One of the bacon pieces goes missing. The giveaway? The methodical chewing coming from the redhead. There’s no shame in the game though, and she dares him to do something about it with one raise of an eyebrow. All the strawberries disappear from her fruit cup as payback. It’s quiet, just light chatter from the cook and waiter, no one else with them at this five thirty am time slot. She wipes the ketchup by his lip with her thumb, and he captures her hand, a small kiss on her palm, which leads to a blush on her cheeks, a hushed “mul- _ der _ ”. When they leave, he helps her with her coat and she leads them out, holding the door open for him. Turns out chivalry isn’t dead after all. 

They stand with the pale pink orange yellow cerulean sky behind them, a watercolor painting. They are the tiny drops of black, the accidental paint spill, dark wool coats and darker coffee in thin paper cups, steam billowing against the sun rise. Crystal blue eyes and auburn waves, double dimples and quick swipes of her tongue against berry lips, mock disappointment etched in her features as he takes away her caffeine, only to kiss her on the cheek. Her fingers tangle in his too long hair, tie crinkling beneath her roaming hands, as her lips fit against his, coffee and faint mint toothpaste and  _ him _ .

\--

end.

**Author's Note:**

> lmk what you think :-) and thanks for reading <3


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